Last modified: Monday, March 17, 2008 6:31 PM EDT REILLY: Inside Mainstream Liberal Media Conspiracy headquarters It's time again for another visit to Journalism 101, the 2008 election (oh God, isn't it over yet?) edition. Today we'll look at the various charges of media bias in the presidential campaign, which we, as a professional journalist (as you can tell by the use of the editorial "we" when I mean "me") can tell you are totally false. Otherwise we would have gotten the memo already from Mainstream Liberal Media Conspiracy headquarters (located in a secret cave deep beneath the New York Times building) telling us how to slant our coverage. However, it could simply be that the MLMC hasn't yet figured out which left wing extremist should be the beneficiary of our unfair coverage: Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton or that other leftwing media darling, Sen. John McCain. Of course, there's always Ralph Nader, 75, who got into the race because he didn't want somebody of Sen. McCain's youth and inexperience to get the job. In an election season in which Rush Limbaugh is telling his dittoheads to vote for Hillary to ensure the defeat of the politician he hates above all others, John McCain, anything can happen. Oh, no - wait, the Rushmeister is actually trying this in the primaries as a way of encouraging more bloodletting among the Democrats. He may not have to work so hard. Reportedly there have already been some ugly fights at liberal media organizations over support going to Obama or Clinton. Partisans on one side have accused the other of being, well, partisan. Things have been said, reputations have been assailed, brie has been thrown. Meanwhile on the Republican side, Sen. McCain, with the nomination firmly in hand - Limbaugh, Coulter, et al. notwithstanding - had so much fun being attacked by the New York Times a few weeks ago that he's now going around picking fights with reporters, stealing their lunch money and dumping their books in puddles. But the real story of this campaign is not about the MLMC anymore. Technology and cultural sensibilities have bypassed the traditional news organizations so that now the campaign debate is being framed by a new, powerful force. I speak, of course, of "Saturday Night Live." Yes, the folks who brought us "The Amazing Bass-O-Matic," the Butabi brothers and Astronaut Jones are now creating the most analyzed and most powerful political commentary in the land. The opening skit on "SNL" can actually turn the tide of the campaign, unless there's a week where the governor of New York gets caught in a $4,000 "indiscretion." Then we have to go back to that old standby for solid, reliable information: "The Daily Show." So, do the media have a political bias? Of course they do, but it has simply become irrelevant. That's our story and we are sticking to it, at least until the next memo from MLMC comes out. TOM REILLY is a Sun Chronicle news editor. He can be reached at 508.236-0332 or at treilly@thesunchronicle.com when he's not watching the "I've Got a Crush on Obama" video.